Here is the information from the Lizzie B Website at the end of the 2005 Sunset Series. The current year's Website is here

2005 Crew

Pre-Season Preparation - After much brouhaha we installed a replacement mast in April. Sail dimension-wise (and weight, section size, sheeting angles, etc.) it is the same as the original mast. However, it is a triple-spreader configuration instead of the old double-spreader configuration. Since it doesn't have any of the advantages that a triple-spreader rig normally has it shouldn't be any faster (and after six races that certainly seems to be true). We have a new mainsail that is identical to the old one except that it has slightly lighter patches in the corners because it uses Kevlar, instead of Dacron, reinforcements. The old main was from 2003 and had ~250 miles (~80 upwind miles) on it. We have an appeal of our rating pending with the national US PHRF Appeal Committee, details here.

Description of Individual Sunset Races During 2005

      May 25th       June 1st       June 22nd       July 6th      

PHRF C Competition - Our class has gotten even more competitive this year! There are nine boats with the potential to win any race – Athena (a J/80), Avet (a J/80), Creeper (a custom Santana 30/30GP), Insanity (an Olson 30), Joy Ride (a J/80), Spirit (a Santana 30/30PC), Superstar (a Catalina 38), Teaser (a Santana 30/30RC) and, of course, Lizzie B. After twelve races, Avet has won four races; Insanity, Joy Ride and Lizzie B have each won two races; and, Athena and Creeper have won one race apiece.

Avet was very competitive in 2004 (especially since at 120 it rates 6 sec/mi slower in Marina del Rey than elsewhere in the country). However, there are now five more J/80s and two of the new boats are consistently beating Avet, relegating her to third among the J/80s. The two new boats are Athena and Joy Ride. Creeper, a custom Santana 30/30, is optimized for light air and is really fast in Marina del Rey when it gets light (she was competitive at 102 in Long Beach, a heavy-air area, but here in MDR she rates 108 and should be unbeatable with good sails and tactics; the crew seems to have finally figured the boat out and have gotten four 2nds and a 1st in the last four races). Insanity, sailed by the Barnard family is always fast but doesn't race each week. Two Santana 30/30s have great potential but Spirit has had somewhat inconsistent crew work while Teaser comes out for fewer than one-third of the Sunset races. Finally, Superstar has done really well over the last two seasons though they seem to be suffering somewhat this year from the absence of Tim Tunks (who is recovering from neck surgery). In the past it was rare that they weren't one of the top three or four boats but with the new J/80s and Creeper finally starting to do well on a consistent basis Superstar has fallen back toward the middle of the pack. Our class is getting good turnout, averaging 10 or 11 boats per race. However, there are only three boats, Lizzie B, Spirit and Superstar, that have come out for every race.

Set forth below are standings in PHRF C for the mini-series. We won the first mini-series and Creeper won the second mini-series, we were second. The third mini-series starts on July 20th.

Marylyn Ritchie Competition - Wow!! The competition for the Marylyn Ritchie Trophy is really tough this year. After twelve races the Star is leading with mostly 1sts while two other boats, Wildcat and Cuvee Caliente, have mostly 1sts and 2nds in the same class – PHRF B. Margaritaville 1.5 had been doing well early but had a series of DNFs that took her out of the competition. We are currently in third place but with two discards there is less than one-half a point between 3rd and 5th. It doesn't look like it will be possible for us to get into 1st unless something happens to the Star, which seems very unlikely. A table showing approximate total points for all boats is available from the CYC website here. Also available on this website are tables showing the same race points but with the boats sorted for no discards and three discards.

The scoring for the Marylyn Ritchie Trophy was modified a few years back so that class size is much less important now. As a result, the competition is now fierce and includes boats from different sized classes (after twelve races, five of the six classes are represented in the top 9 boats). A table showing the points scored for each individual race, depending on the number of entrants, is available here.

In 2004 and 2003, the 2nd place boat in the Marylyn Ritchie race (and a close competitor for 1st) was Bandit, a Santana 20. You can find out more about Bandit at Bruce Fleck's website here. We don't know of any other boats with websites (if so let us know and we'll add a link).